


Remix

by paperstorm



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 02:57:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4084018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being on tour again leads Luke and Michael back to something they stopped doing a long time ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remix

**Author's Note:**

> I had a dream Muke stayed in together one night and watched movies and sexed each other up, and I tried to write it and instead it turned into this?? Idk. I have no good reasons.

There’s hammering at his door just as Luke is getting out of the shower. He wraps a towel around his waist quickly and goes to check the peep-hole. He’s met by what he assumes is an extreme close up of Ashton’s nose. Luke laughs and pulls the door open.   
   
“Dude, the point of these things is so I can make sure it isn’t a crazy fan or a serial killer or something, not so I can examine your nose hairs.”  
  
Ashton giggles and bursts into the room, with Calum trailing close behind.   
  
“What are you doin’?” Cal asks.   
   
Luke gestures to himself. “Hygiene. What are you doing?”  
   
“Going out. You’re coming,” Ashton informs him.   
   
“Where’s Michael?” Luke wonders.   
   
“Where is he ever?” Ashton rolls his eyes, but affectionately. “He doesn’t wanna come.”  
  
“Oh.” Luke frowns and thinks for a moment. Michael was quiet earlier. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything; Michael is quiet lots of times, and he often doesn’t want to go with them to bars or whatever and it doesn’t mean he’s sad, but Luke still doesn’t feel right leaving him. Not this time. “You guys go. Have fun. I’ll hang with Mikey.”  
   
Ashton and Calum exchange a look, but they don’t argue.  
   
“Be careful,” Luke cautions as they leave, and hears Calum quietly saying something like “you know that’s just how they are,” while the door closes behind them.  
   
Luke smiles to himself. He dresses and rubs a towel through his wet hair, leaving it messy and unstyled, and goes across the hall to Michael’s room. Michael answers right away when Luke knocks, with a confused look on his face.   
   
“Didn’t you go out?”  
   
Luke shakes his head. “They said you were staying in. So I’m staying in with you.”  
   
Michael sighs, but lets Luke in. “You didn’t need to do that.”  
  
“I’m not, like, here to babysit you. I wanted to hang with you.”  
   
“Oh.” Michael nods. “Okay. Um. What do you wanna do?"”  
  
“Can we watch  _School Of Rock_?” Luke asks, knowing Michael won’t say no to him.   
   
Michael rolls his eyes, but in a fond way. “Sure. It’s been, what, a whole two days since you last watched it?”  
   
“It’s been like a month!” Luke protests. “I don’t even remember – what is it? Let’s sock today?”  
  
Michael smiles and shakes his head. “You’re a dork.”  
  
He grabs his laptop anyway, though, and starts searching Netflix for the movie. Luke flops down onto Michael’s bed, while Michael sets the computer up and the lies beside him. Jack Black appears on the screen, rocking out like a complete moron in a smoky club, and Luke smiles. This movie is his happy place. That, and Michael.  
   
“Why didn’t you want to go out?” Michael asks after a while, as Dewey is answering the phone and pretending to be his roommate.  
   
Luke shrugs. “I don’t always want to. Rather stay here with you tonight.”  
  
“Didn’t feel like trollin’ for groupies?”  
   
Luke laughs, because the suggestion is ridiculous. “When was the last time I hooked up with a groupie? It’s been forever.”  
  
“How come?”  
  
Luke shrugs. “Because it isn’t fun. It’s awkward because you don’t know them, and they get this look on their faces like they want you to stay forever and I can’t. I always regretted it the next day, the few times I did it. So I don’t, now. Besides, you’re around me all the time. When would I be off gettin’ some that you don’t know about?”  
  
Michael hums, more of a non-committal acknowledgement that Luke spoke than in agreement to what was said.  
   
“What about you?”  
   
“Girls don’t want me.”  
  
Luke rolls his eyes. “Yes they do. That’s dumb.” He knows for a fact it isn’t true. He sees how many fans Michael has, maybe even the most of any of them. He doesn’t blame them. It’s hard not to love Michael.  
   
“You don’t have to stay here, you know. Just ‘cause you feel bad for me.”  
   
“I don’t. What’s with you tonight?” Luke reaches out and lightly smacks Michael’s arm when Michael scoffs. “Hey. I don’t feel bad for you. I’m like, between you guys. Sometimes I love the party scene. Sometimes I don’t. Tonight I’d rather be here. Okay?”   
   
Michael nods a little, and a soft smile plays at the corners of his pink lips. “Okay.”  
   
“Good.” Luke holds his arms open. “Now cuddle me, bitch.”  
   
Michael grumbles about it but doesn’t argue this point either. He never does where Luke is concerned. He shuffles over and curls up against Luke, his head pillowed on Luke’s shoulder. It’s familiar, having Michael against him like this. They’ve been doing this for years. They both know instinctively how they fit together.  
   
Luke trails his fingers through Michael’s newly black hair. It’s always so soft right after he dyes it. “I like this,” he says, fully ignoring the movie now in favor of paying attention to Michael instead. Luke can’t put his finger on it but Michael seemed sad today. Maybe for the last few days, if Luke really gives it some thought. If he’s homesick or something and needs some affection, Luke is more than willing to give it to him. It’s the sort of thing they do for each other. Luke loves his whole band, but Michael is the reason he makes it through the hard days.  
   
“Yeah?” Michael asks, sounding hopeful. He pretends otherwise, but he’s always been needy for Luke’s approval. His fingers slip under the fabric of Luke’s shirt. They trail, slow, over Luke’s skin, probably still warm from the shower. Luke tries to suppress the way it makes him shiver.  
   
He nods. “You look like Revenge-era Gerard Way.”  
   
He’s Michael’s hero – Luke knows what the compliment will mean. Michael turns his face into Luke’s neck and laughs softly. The puff of breath tickles Luke’s neck in a way he likes. “You’re just saying that.”  
   
“No I’m not. You kinda look like him anyway. Something about your eyes.”  
   
“He tweets me sometimes.”  
   
“I know.” Luke squeezes his arms around Michael’s shoulders. Michael deserves everything he wants in this world; Luke is so happy he’s getting it. “How cool is that?”  
   
“It’s amazing.”  
   
“We, like. We made it and shit, man. I wrote with Josh Ramsay this year. We’re doing arenas. We’re friends with All Time Low and Good Charlotte. All that stuff you and me used to talk about, it all came true.”  
   
“Yeah,” Michael whispers, but he sounds sad again. Wistful, almost, like maybe there’s one dream he’d like to come true that hasn’t yet.  
   
“What’s wrong Mikey?” Luke asks quietly, running his nose through Michael’s hair. He hopes he sounds sympathetic and not pitying. He hopes Michael knows there isn’t anything he can’t say here. Luke already knows the rest of his secrets.  
   
Michael sighs and doesn’t answer, opting instead to tuck his head under Luke’s chin and turn back to the computer screen, so for a while Luke drops it. They go back to watching the movie. It’s one of Luke’s favorites. He’s seen it more times that he can count and he still thinks every line is funny. It cracks him up when Jack Black does the eyebrow thing while he’s peering through the window of the music room. Michael relaxes into him a little further, his breath warm on Luke’s neck, and it’s nice. They don’t do this as often as they used to. They didn’t at all, for a while. Luke always misses it, even if it stirs up feelings he’s supposed to have squashed down well over a year ago.   
   
It takes Luke’s brain a few long minutes to realize what’s happening, what it means, when something solid starts to press into his hip. Because no, that can’t be happening. They don’t do that anymore.   
   
“Um. Michael?” he says softly, not wanting to embarrass his friend. “Are you …?”  
   
“Fuck,” Michael swears, realizing too late himself, and angling his hips away from Luke. He tries to untangle their bodies altogether, but Luke tightens his grip and doesn’t let Michael go. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”  
   
“It’s okay,” Luke soothes. And it is, because that’s just how it goes sometimes. It’s just young bodies, and human contact, and loneliness. Sometimes there’s no way to control it. Luke’s woken up with every member of his band in a shared hotel bed at one point or another, snuggled together while they slept and morning wood pressing into places it shouldn’t. It’s embarrassing for everyone but it’s no one’s fault.  
   
Except Michael is all kinds of tense in Luke’s arms, so maybe that’s not what’s going on this time.   
  
“Please talk to me.”  
  
“I can’t,” Michael mumbles. He sounds miserable.  
  
“Why not?”  
   
“Because it’s you.”  
  
Luke frowns. “That’s exactly why you should be able to tell me. There isn’t supposed to be anything we can’t tell each other.”  
   
“I can’t do this.” Michael goes to pull himself out of Luke’s arms again and this time Luke lets him. He gets up and walks a few steps away. His hands come up to brush through his hair, fixing it in the pathological way he always does, like a nervous tick.  
   
There are kids in private school uniforms learning to play electric guitars on the laptop screen but it slides, forgotten, toward the end of the bed when Michael’s movements jostle the mattress.   
   
Luke sits up and watches him, his heart sinking. He thought Michael was just having a bad day. He didn’t realize something was really wrong. “Michael.”  
   
"”Do you ever think about it?” Michael asks, his voice raspy.  
   
“About what?”  
  
“You know.”  
   
Luke knows. He just didn’t want to say. “I can’t. We can’t, we both decided that, right?” It isn’t entirely the truth. Luke does think about it. He just wishes he could stop.  
   
Luke didn’t want it at the time, and if he’s honest he doesn’t want it now, but it was for the best. The things they used to do, together under the covers in Michael’s bed, it wasn’t hurting anyone when they were still in school. Even at the beginning, when Cal and Ash came along and two became four, it was relatively harmless. But once they moved to London, once they were a real band, it was too dangerous. They were both scared. Of getting caught, getting exposed, and ruining the band. Of breaking up and ruining the band. Of any number of what-ifs, and all roads led to ruining the band. Becoming rockstars was what they dreamed of, what they all worked and risked and sacrificed for. What their  _families_  sacrificed for. What he and Michael had wasn’t worth the possibility of destroying it. That’s what Luke said. It wasn’t what he felt, but it’s what he said. Michael said it too, so Luke believed him. Luke never knew he wasn’t the only one who didn’t mean it.   
   
“I know we did.”  
  
“So?”  
  
Michael turns to him with lost, sad eyes, shiny with unshed tears. “So maybe I changed my mind.”  
  
Luke shakes his head. He closes his eyes and presses the heels of his palms into them, rubbing. Trying to stave off the tension headache he can feel coming. It’s probably useless. There isn’t enough alcohol in the world for this conversation, and Luke doesn’t have any of it. “Michael.”  
   
“Stop saying my name.” Michael looks at him, looks right through him. He’s always been able to do that. “Answer the question.”  
   
“Where is this coming from?”  
  
“So you don’t?”  
   
Luke opens and closes his mouth a few times, unsure of what to say. This was all sprung on him out of nowhere, and he isn’t ready for where it might be leading. Not with no warning. “Why are you doing this?”  
   
“Because I do!” Michael yells. “I think about it. I think about you, all the fucking time lately. I think about you when we’re together, when we’re not, when we’re on stage, when we’re writing. But if you don’t, then I … I need to figure out how to stop. Because I can’t do this anymore. It’s too hard.”  
   
“Why today? We stopped doing this a long time ago, what changed?” It isn’t what Luke wants to say, but it’s what comes out of his mouth. Luke’s become so skilled at suppressing what he feels for Michael that it barely feels like work anymore most days. It feels like part of the job. There are good and bad pieces to doing what they do, and one of the bad pieces is that Luke couldn’t be with Michael anymore. He was never happy about it but he accepted it. He thought Michael had too.  
   
Michael shakes his head and blinks, a tear or two slipping past his iron resolve and sliding down his pale cheeks, stained red because he’s upset. “Please just answer the question.”  
   
It breaks Luke down, seeing him like this. It hurts in places he hasn’t let himself feel in months. He gets up and goes to Michael as if on autopilot, pulling him into a hug. Michael goes so easily, no will to fight left in him. It makes Luke’s chest ache to think this is his fault; that he’s done something to wear Michael down like this.  
  
“I don’t let myself think about it,” Luke whispers, honest words pressed into Michael’s hair, because it’s the only place he feels safe admitting things like this. So many of Luke’s secrets have been murmured into Michael’s skin. “I can’t. Hurts too much.”  
   
“Do you miss me?” Michael asks, sounding broken.  
   
“Of course I do. I loved you.”  
  
“Loved,” Michael repeats. It sounds like the worst thing he’s ever heard.  
   
“Love,” Luke corrects. “Still do. Never stopped.”  
   
“Why did we stop, then?”  
   
“You know why.”  
  
“It made sense, then.” Michael’s arms hug tighter around Luke’s waist. He’s so warm against him. "Now it doesn’t.”  
  
“What happened?”  
   
“We’re touring again.”  
  
“So?”  
   
“So we’re around each other all the time again. For a long time we were so busy.” Michael’s tears leave dampness on Luke’s skin. Luke wants to kiss them away and it’s agony that he can’t. “Interviews and awards shows and the book and just. Bouncing all over the world for so many things. We barely had time to breathe. Now we’re back doing this, back on stage every single night and in a tour bus the rest of the time. It’s been a while since we’ve been together, just the four of us, for a stretch of time like this.”  
   
“It’s my favorite part of being a band.”  
   
“Me too. Except it’s like … like it used to be.”  
   
Luke feels it too. He didn’t think it was a possibility, reigniting what he used to have with Michael, so he shut those feelings down. Now they’re rushing back, as strong as if they never left.   
   
“Michael,” Luke murmurs. He knows he’s supposed to stop saying Michael’s name but his brain is fuzzy and he can’t think of anything else. No other words really seem to matter, anyway. He nuzzles into the side of Michael’s face, holding him close. He’s so lit up inside, the tension between them crackling like sparks. One inch, one person brave enough to make the first move, to risk rejection, and it would all be over. Luke would give in so easily. It isn’t the first time they’ve had an almost. A near relapse. They’re so close, always touching and lying together and in each other’s space on stage. They don’t have any secrets or boundaries, other than this one. There have been so many just-abouts, but then one of them always blinks first and backs out. This time, it isn’t going to be Luke. That much he knows for sure. Michael breaks down what Luke always thinks are walls of steel with feather-light touches.  
   
Michael’s lips are on his neck suddenly and Luke can’t breathe. He tilts his head, making room for Michael to explore, to kiss and lick as much as he wants. Arousal hits Luke so hard it nearly knocks him off his feet. He’d almost forgotten what it feels like, to want someone like this. It’s been such a long time. He’s kept his mind on lock-down, hasn’t let himself think about Michael like this in so, so long, and now it’s like floodgates. Like a tidal wave.  
   
He nudges Michael’s face with his own, urging him to lift his head so Luke can kiss him properly, sliding their lips together for the first time in more months that Luke cares to think about. The last time they did this he didn’t have a lip ring. Michael has tattoos. Luke’s grown a foot. Even still, it’s like no time has passed at all. Their lips still know how they fit together. They still know the give and take, Michael’s tongue slipping into Luke’s mouth at first and then the other way, balanced, not fighting for dominance. Michael’s hands slip up the back of Luke’s shirt, fingertips pressing into Luke’s spine. He shivers, hips tipping forward of their own accord to find Michael’s, rutting together, the place in their jeans where neither are quite soft anymore grinding, chasing friction. Chasing memories.  
   
“What are we doing?” Luke whispers. It feels so dangerous. He can smell Michael and feel his heat and hear his staggered breathing, all Luke’s senses wrapped up in what he can’t have anymore, and it’s so hard, like this, to remember the reasons why they ever stopped.  
   
“I don’t know,” Michael whispers back. “Tell me to back off, okay? If that’s what you want.”  
   
“It isn’t,” Luke admits. “I never stopped wanting you, Michael, I just … we couldn’t. So I turned it off.”  
   
“I’ll stop.”  
  
“I don’t …” Luke exhales shakily. It feels like playing with fire but he can’t lie to Michael. He’s Luke’s oldest friend, Luke’s best friend. Luke’s never been any good at it. “Don’t want you to stop.”  
   
Michael pushes Luke’s shirt up, and he lifts his arms so it comes off over his head. Michael kisses his collarbones, stopping only to let Luke pull his shirt off too, and then goes back, leaving tiny purple marks where he sucks at Luke’s skin. Someone would see them if Luke wore anything with a low neckline, and Luke doesn’t even care. He wants the world to see. He was so scared, once upon a time, of what would happen if people found out about them. Now, suddenly, Luke wants to shout it through a megaphone. Fear has cost them enough. Luke sighs and tilts his head back, his hands resting and squeezing around Michael’s hips. An hour ago, Luke didn’t realize he still wanted this. Now, it’s like he’s been dying of thirst for his whole life and Michael is cool, clean water. Now, Luke can’t believe how stupid they’ve both been, to have let this much time pass.  
   
For a moment it’s slow, tentative, both of them waiting for the other to change his mind. Then the dam breaks, and it’s feral. Fumbling, impatient hands get skinny jeans off, and Michael pushes Luke back onto the bed and crawls on top of him, kissing him, hard and desperate. Luke feels a moan tear from his own throat as he tugs at Michael’s silky hair with one hand and slides the other down, cupping Michael’s ass and pushing, urging him to grind his hips into Luke’s.  
   
It’s so good, Michael’s cock hot and hard against his, Michael’s skin everywhere. Luke’s been aching to have this again so much more than he ever realized until just now. The very first time they made each other come, it was like this. Michael on top, kissing messily while they rubbed against each other. It felt good but Luke was so embarrassed, until Michael made everything better. Michael always makes everything better. The memory feels close and far away at the same time, and makes Luke feel like screaming.  
  
“Fuck,” he breathes. Michael rolls his hips, slow and deliberate, and sends lightning bolts of pleasure through Luke. He’s so hard, leaking into the space between them, making it slippery.   
  
“You want this, right?” Michael asks, breathless.   
  
“Does it feel like I don’t?” Luke laughs weakly. He holds Michael’s face in his hands and kisses him. “God, I missed you so much.”  
   
“Why did we stop?”  
   
“We’re so fucking stupid.”  
   
Michael takes Luke’s bottom lip between his teeth and drags them, gently, over the black ring. “I like this. Bet it would feel so weird if you were sucking me off.”  
   
Luke moans again. He hasn’t done that in what feels like eternity. He used to love it. Loved the noises Michael made, how desperate he got, the way he’d grip handfuls of Luke’s hair. “Can I?”  
   
Michael shakes his head. “Me first.”  
   
He moves, kissing down Luke’s chest, and Luke can’t protest. Michael’s lips find all his spots, all the places to kiss and suck that make Luke shiver. He still knows, after all this time, just the way to have Luke panting and bleary-eyed before he’s even below Luke’s waist. Luke wonders how often Michael thinks about this. If he worked to remember, in case things were ever different. Luke knows he did. He never wanted to let himself hope they’d be back here, but he wanted to remember all Michael’s buttons, just in case. He didn’t want to forget a single thing about their time together. He always thought maybe, someday, the world would change around them and they could find their way back to each other. The world hasn’t changed, but maybe Luke has. Maybe he’s finally realizing Michael is more important than what people might say.  
   
Michael’s lips on Luke’s straining erection are like heaven, like coming home, like other flowery metaphors Luke doesn’t have the brain power to create because it’s wet and warm in Michael’s mouth and it all feels too good. He was always good at this, even when they first started and he should’ve been clumsy like Luke was. Michael takes him deep, the head of Luke’s cock bumping the back of his throat, and Luke groans and clenches and tries not to fuck up into Michael’s mouth so hard his eyes water. Michael’s hands are so strong on his hips, holding him down. His tongue flutters along sensitive nerves, overwhelming because it’s been so long and because it’s  _him_. It’s Michael, it’s  _them_ , and Luke never thought he’d have this back. He’s been so stupid all this time, keeping something from both of them that made them happy, make them feel whole in a way Luke hasn’t since they stopped. There were pieces of him missing, he realizes now, and those pieces were Michael.  
   
It’s embarrassing how quickly he comes, but Michael hums around him and swallows it all, and Luke can barely catch his breath, his body twitching as it rides out the last pulses of it, warm waves crashing over him and sending his skin prickling. Michael crawls back up Luke and kisses him, and Luke tastes himself, bitter and sharp, and underneath the softer, mellow taste of Michael. Luke used to love kissing him. They used to do it for hours, until their lips went numb.  
   
He flips them over and offers Michael the same treatment, licking his nipples and dragging his teeth over pale, soft skin. He pushes his face into Michael’s soft tummy, unable to resist nuzzling against it. Luke wants to fall asleep on it. He wants to kiss it until Michael believes he’s beautiful. He knows Michael doesn’t.  
   
“I got fat since the last time,” Michael mumbles, right on cue. Luke is the only person who’s ever been allowed to know Michael’s insecurities.  
   
Luke kisses the skin under his lips. “No you didn’t. Shut up, you’re perfect.”  
   
He doesn’t give Michael a chance to debate it. He picks Michael’s thick cock up and slides his lips over it, and God he  _missed_ this. He missed the weight of it on his tongue, the way Michael sighs happily, Michael’s fingers in his hair. Luke’s hair is shorter now so there’s less to grab onto. The thought alone makes him want to grow it back out.  
   
“Fuck, so good, babe,” Michael praises, his eyes closed and his mouth fallen open when Luke looks up at him.  
   
He sucks hard, swallowing around it, remembering how Michael likes it, all the ways to make him moan and gasp and laugh softly like he did this yesterday and not more than a year ago. When it’s over, Luke might never forgive himself for taking this away from them, but for now he enjoys it, enjoys the feeling and the sounds Michael makes and the way tears pool around his eyes when he bobs his head too quickly and forgets to breathe.

“Just like that, Luke, fuck … I’m …” Michael warns him with a hand on his shoulder, shoving weakly, and Luke ignores it and keeps going, lets Michael come down his throat. The taste of it makes Luke moan, not because it’s anything to write home about but because it’s so familiar Luke wants to cry. He knows everything about Michael like this. The universe will have to pry it from his cold, dead hands this time, because Luke isn’t giving this up twice.  
   
Michael holds him close, in the dark room under the protection of hotel linens, and Luke feels Michael’s racing heartbeat between them. He presses his palm into Michael’s chest, the thumping underneath his fingers anchoring him to the moment. Somewhere on the floor, the faint sound of the final number Dewey and the kids play at the Battle Of The Bands fills the room, and Luke can’t stop the giggle that bubbles out of him.  
   
“We missed most of the movie.”  
   
Michael laughs too. “No offense to your favorite, but this was better.”  
   
“You’re my favorite,” Luke says.  
  
“Would it, um. Would it kill the mood if I asked about tomorrow?”  
   
“What’s tomorrow?”  
   
“No, like. With us. Like if this is just for tonight or not.”  
   
“Oh.” Luke pushes his face into Michael’s neck and inhales, breathes in the smell of them. “I don’t know.”  
   
“I don’t either. What about everything else? All the reasons we ended it the first time?”  
   
“I don’t care. They were stupid reasons.”  
   
Michael smiles against Luke’s forehead. “Yeah. They were.”  
   
“Cal and Ash know, you know,” Luke tells him. “That we used to.”  
   
“They do?”  
   
“Ashton told me, once. They figured it out. He promised he wouldn’t say anything. He thought it was dumb that we stopped, too.”  
   
Michael nods. He hooks a finger under Luke’s chin and tilts it up so he can kiss him softly. “I don’t wanna lose you again,” he murmurs.  
   
“Me neither.”  
   
“So then fuck everything else. We can figure it out.”  
   
Luke trails light fingertips over Michael’s cheek, down his chest, and snuggles in closer. “I love you.”  
   
“I love you too,” Michael whispers. “I always did.”  
   
“Don’t go again, okay?”  
   
Michael shakes his head and hugs Luke tighter. “Not going anywhere this time.”


End file.
